A woman my mum works with sent her home with Series 5 of QI and some episodes of I'd Do Anything on couple of disks. I watched the first two episodes of I'd Do Anything tonight and I am totally addicted.

It's sort of like American Idol for musical theatre. It's a British show, and they're trying to find people to play Nancy and Oliver in the new West End production of Oliver!. They've done two previous series, one to find Maria in The Sound of Music and one to find Joseph for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. They need one woman for Nancy and 3 young boys to play Oliver. John Barrowman is one of the judges/coaches, so that's kind of cool, mostly I'm finding the show itself really interesting. It's like American Idol, but I care, you know? I love musical theatre. So I'm up to the Top 12 now, where the women and boys are going to be started to be voted on by the public. I decided to wait until my mum could watch it with me, since I thought she'd enjoy it.

I haven't watch any of the QI, yet, but I know that'll be good because QI is love.

In other news, I am having the worst time with my Water fic for dresdenflashfic. I started with one story which went absolutely nowhere, so I talked it out with Ama and she gave me a new idea, which I've now written, but it's way too long and I'm trying to cut it down so it has a nice, clean plotline and...blargh! I haven't missed a challenge there yet, but I wasn't terribly happy with the last one I wrote (for the Fire challenge), so I'd rather not submit one than submit one I'm not happy with. Hopefully the fact that it's driving me crazy is only because it's late. Maybe tomorrow everything will look better and I'll be able to edit it into something submittable. If not, oh well.

My dresdenficathon fic is coming along nicely now, though, after a rough start. I realized I was coming at it from the wrong angle and now it's going along quite quickly. I'm pretty confident I'll have it done in time.

Also, I got a 97 on my Philosophy exam! Whoot! I don't know my final mark yet, but I'm obviously very pleased with that.

joonscribble does book rec's quite often and I'm always impressed with her well-readedness (well-readitivity?). I thought I'd offer a list of some of my favourite books of all time, not to show off my well-readedness, but to share the book love.

( Books! )

I am done my Philosophy course! I still have to write the exam, but all the work is done.

Take that, Philosophy course! You think you could break me with your nonsensical questions and your misnumbered answers and your strange lack of quotation marks in certain articles, but I have prevailed! I stand upon your smouldering remains and laugh, laugh I say! Muahahaha!

On to World History. High school diploma, here I come! Boo-yah!

Waiting for the Oscars to start. I just watched two hours of red carpet stuff with our Canadian interview people, Ben Mulroney (who also hosts Canadian Idol) and Jeanne Baker (Beker? the Fashion TV host). Now some pre-show with Regis Philbin is on and I cannot bare to sit through it. So, I'm here, posting.

Lots of Canadian nominees this year, which is very cool. I'm loving how Ben and Jeanne were trying to work it into conversation with EVERYONE they interviewed. "Steve Carrell, how do you feel about Juno?" Because I have been longing to hear Steve Carrell's opinion on Juno. I was also loving how Ben would say 'Nice to see you again' and everyone would go 'oh yes, lovely to see you too', with an expression of 'I have no idea who this person is' on their faces, then the flash of 'Oh, Canada! It's the Canadians, how cute'.

Julie Christie is looking beautiful tonight. Whenever I see her, I think of John Rhys-Davies on the LOTR:FOTR commentary talking about how he played Gimli's reaction to Galadriel as his feelings about Julie Christie. Just the most beautiful person he's ever seen.

I only caught the end of Saoirse Ronan's interview (props to Ben for getting 'Seersha' right, I've heard some pretty interesting pronunciations lately) and she's so adorable. What a wonderful accent. Jeanne was all:"Colin Farrell, you are also from Ireland, which seems to a country of charming and compassionate people (see how I can segue). Response?" Colin: "Now you've made it so I have to be both charming and compassionate in the next 30 seconds. It's an impossible task." He brought his mum, so sweet.

Viggo Mortensen's niece is his date tonight. Beautiful girl. They asked her who her dress is by and she just looked at Viggo like 'They're asking me stuff, what do I do?' and he answered for her. He is also wearing a Montreal Canadians bracelet. "Go Habs!" We love you, Viggo Mortensen! He also said that no director nominated tonight is even half as good as David Cronenberg. I call for mud wrestling!

They tag teamed poor Marion Cotillard, who looked rather overwhelmed having two people questioning her at once. Ben speaks fluent French (he translated for a contestant all through season one of Canadian Idol), he should have helped her out a bit. I don't doubt she speaks English, but she's probably nervous and tag teaming her isn't helping.

Miley Cyrus had a canned response to her first question that really didn't have anything to do with what they asked. She's looking very pretty tonight, however. Anne Hathaway's dress would look nicer without the garlard of roses. Heidi Klum looked beautiful. Cate Blanchett is looking very pregnant, again. I find it amusing since one of her nominations is for playing a man. I saw Johnny Depp, briefly, with his non-wife Vanessa Paradis, both looking very good. Where are you, Clive Owen?

Anyway, show's going to start soon. Laters!

So, I watched Paris, Je t'aime yesterday. It's a film I had been looking forward to since I first heard about it and then seemed to drop off my radar for a while and then it was at the movie store when I went the other day, so I picked it up.

( Mimes and vampires and French people ftw! )

Stolen from joonscribble.

( My Fandom Exes. )

Alright, so they showed the unaired Dresden Files pilot on Space (the Canadian SciFi channel equivilant) and it was awesome. Lots of great stuff, but, interestingly, the stuff they cut was stuff that was cutable. It's awesome stuff, but it's mostly filler. I think the cut episode would be more enjoyable with it in there, but the story gets across fine.

Generalized summary: lots more Susan and she's much less of an idiot without the cut scenes, Morgan and Harry seem a bit more friendly towards each other and Kirmani has a bunch more dialogue and more interaction and conflict with Murphy. And there is Bob! In talking skull form, no ghost, but voiced by Terry. Also a moment Harry/Murphy fans will flip over.

Anyway, I made notes because I'm a geek I thought some people might be interested. I also have it on my brand new DVR (first thing recorded on it), so I may screencap it at some point.

( Missing Stuff - Highly Spoilerific and extremely detailed. )

One of the dvds I got for Christmas was Bon Cop Bad Cop, which is a Canadian film that I absolutely adore.

( Rantage. )

Not too long back a couple of people did a meme where they chose a character they disliked and invited people to offer opinions as to why the character wasn't that bad. The people that I saw chose Gwen Cooper from Torchwood, but there was some mention in the comments about Owen Harper from Torchwood as well.

( Owen Harper: Asshat )

We did our Christmas Eve celebrating tonight, which I always think of as 'French-Canadian' Christmas, only because we eat tortière. We don't do the rest of the Rèveillon feteing. I love tortière. We had Joan over, too. Joan is a dog groomer and breeder who is 76, very tiny, cantankerous, chain-smoking and absolutely delightful. She grooms our dogs, which is how we met her, and about 7 or 8 years ago, she got sick and had to have surgery. My mother, who is a nurse, helped her through that and since then, she's been sort of a surrogate grandmother to us. She is fascinating, hilarious, feisty and wonderful and always, always right. We call her The Oracle, because no matter what problem you bring to her, she has an answer and its the right answer. We love her.

So, she opened her gifts and my parents open her gifts for them. She made me open a couple of presents that were under the tree already so I didn't feel left out. I got the Hairspray DVD and the Serenity Collector's Edition DVD. So, awesome! We ate and had a lovely time, except I caught my finger in between the sugar bowl and its lid while trying to keep the lid from falling off and shattering on the floor. The top part of my finger won't bend, but my mother insists it's not broken. Neither is the sugar bowl.

Mum and I watched more of SG-1 Season 10 while she knitted and I cross-stitched. Nothing says Christmas like Ba'al and his clones. :D

Tomorrow is English Christmas (Turkey) and the kidlings (Adam, Amalie and her brother George) are coming for that, after they get back from seeing Ama and George's family in Toronto. Ama gets very hyper and it's always fun.

I was thinking about Mrs. Santa Claus today. Has anyone else ever seen it? It was a made for TV movie with Angela Lansbury and Terrence Mann in it and it's a musical. I love it. It's one of my favourite Christmas movies, but I haven't seen it this year.

My friends and I had our Christmas party tonight, which was loads of fun. During the gift exchange, my fellow DW-obsessed friend gave me a Torchwood book. There was much squeeage from me, when I saw Captain Jack's pretty blue eyes staring up at me. It's called 'Another Life' and I've only read a few chapters so far, but it seems pretty good so far. As good as the DW ones anyway, which I enjoyed, even if they're not the best-written things. They're quick and fun.

I was also chatting with my friend Stacey there, who I got into the Dresden Files. She's just finished Death Masks and is eagerly awaiting Blood Rites when she gets enough money for it, or when she comes over and borrows it from me. Which should be soon, since I discovered she still hasn't seen all the episodes of the TV show, so she will have to come and watch them with me and Ama. We chatted about Book vs. TV Murphy (she likes Book!Murphy better) and about Susan (we both think she's kickass) and Marcone (who is awesome) and it made me very happy. She said 'So, have you written any fanfiction for it or anything?' and I just burst out laughing. Why yes, yes I have. By my reckoning, I'm up to about 35 Dresden stories, not including drabbles done for dresdenfiles100 which I should probably post one of these days.

I've been trying to write lately, and I'm out of inspiration. Even when I have an idea, I can't get it down to my satisfaction. I might do a request post soon to see if I can get back into the groove.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve all! Or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Monday!

I love Christmas music. I know lots of people get sick of it and whatever, but I just love it. I love singing along to it, I love the big carols with full choirs, I love it. I'm always happy when December rolls around and I can put on my CDs. In that vein (vain?), I thought I'd share some of my favourite songs, and my favourite versions of them.

( In which there is much Christmas music and ranting of the same )

The power was out from 1:30pm to 9:00pm today. It was extremely annoying, not to mention freezing. Mum and I had to retire to hide under the duvet in her room, where the Scotties were like 'body heat!' and sat on top of us. It was the weirdest black out pattern, too. Our neighbours around the corner had power, the people who's backyard is opposite us had power. It seemed like every street had a few houses out and a few houses with power. My parents took turns calling the HydroOne line, which goes something like this:

Recording: Welcome to HydroOne's power outage hotline. Is this a life-threatening emergency?
You: No.
Recording: Please give the 10 digit number indicating your HydroOne account. Do you know this number?
You: No.
Recording: Please give your phone number with your area code.
You: *phone number with area code*
Recording: I heard *phone number with area code* Is this correct?
You: Yes.
Recording: Please wait a moment while I attempt to locate your account. *waiting* Currently, 9340 customers are without Hydro. Your status has not changed since you last called at 4:32 pm. Currently, we estimate your service to be restored at approximately 4:45pm. Thank you. *hangs up*

So, first we got 4:45pm, then 5:45pm. Then 'the problem has taken longer to fix than anticipated. We currently estimate your service to be restored at 10:00pm'.

So, we ordered pizza and ate in the light of the LED lantern. Speaking of which, the only working phone was in the basement, so we had to run down there anytime it rang. With my latern in one hand, and holding my long skirt up with the other hand so I wouldn't trip, I felt very Florence Nightengale.

The worst part about blackouts is the silence. I cannot stand it. I always need the furnace going, a fan turning or something to sleep. Silence gives me a headache. I have this idea for a machine that simulates household sounds in case of power outtages. I don't think there's a very big market for it, though.

Well, I was supposed to go to a concert put on by the city symphony this afternoon, but it was canceled due to the impending storm that never actually showed up. Then Adam (my older brother) and Amalie (my bf and his fiancee) were supposed to come over for dinner tonight and Ama, my mum and I were going to watch a movie. Ama called and canceled due to a family emergency, so that didn't happen either. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I have to go to school and work on my unbelievably poorly written Philosophy unit so I can hopefully have the course done before Christmas, if I don't rip it up and jump on it first. My computer is too unadvanced work on my Poser artwork for longer than a few minutes at a time in between heavy waiting periods and none of the stories I have tried to work on lately have gone anywhere. So, I'm feeling kind of blah.

Trying to look on the brightside, I did get some Stargate icons made and posted. Mum and I watched 'Warm Springs' tonight in lieu of Hairspray and enjoyed it very much. I got my hair cut on Thursday and they straightened it and it looks awesome and will continue to until I wash my hair again. To illustrate what an event it is for me to have straight hair, it took two hairdressers, one on each side of my head, each armed with a blow dryer and a straightening iron to accomplish the feat. My hair is uber curly (and don't you dare say you wish your hair was curly, you do not want my hair). So, life isn't too bad, really. Today just sort of sucked. I think it might be PMS. Maybe I should go drink some more chocolate milk...

I was woken up at 6 a.m. this morning by some guy walking down the street yelling 'Jesus fucking shit! Jesus fucking shit! Zeller's is the best!'. Which, first of all, it's not. Zeller's sucks. Secondly, it's 6 a.m and you are drunk off your ass. Third, it's a Sunday. On a long weekend. You suck drunken guy, you suck!

Happy Thanksgiving, people!

Has anyone else ever played the Nancy Drew computer games? ( I rant. )

ETA: Does anyone know what the PC term for someone from India is? Can I use Indian without people assuming I mean Natives? Is East Indian an acceptable term? PC is so hard to keep up with.

...and I thought I'd rant a little. *does not have an appropriate SG icon* Seriously, if I knew I'd be writing this much, I would have upgraded this account and not my icon journal. I do not have enough room for all my iconic needs! Hindsight, folks.

( In which I ramble. )